Give Me A Reason
by flaws-and-all
Summary: A ploy to speed up the process. Adolescence. Kyle's p.o.v.


I can feel his eyes on me, but I'm ignoring him, as I've chosen to for what feels like hours now. This time is for homework, something he chooses to pretend is of no existence. This time has always been for homework, but Stan is an idiot when it comes to holding school up as something of importance, and uses this time to play video games he ends up turning off without ever saving, talking until I begin to tire of his voice and decide to finally talk back, and to stare aimlessly around. His stare wasn't aimless today. His eyes were on me. It was making my neck itch.

"Can I help you? Maybe with an assignment?"

I kept my back to him. No point in acknowledging him yet. He'll force me to do that soon enough.

"I heard something today."

I paused in my writing.

"I haven't heard it from you, so I don't know if I should believe it or not."

My pencil twitched between my fingers. At our high school, shit goes around. With the community being so small, the information is pretty much always true, but it's odd for me to share a piece of me with someone other than Stan. Though I was sure there wasn't anything that could have been "found out", almost positively sure, a knot formed in the pit of my stomach.

"What'd you hear?"

The silence set in. He wouldn't speak until I faced him. I turned in my chair to see him set indian-style on my bed, staring at me. I raised my hand.

"Let me say first that I, Kyle Broflovski, have kept my promise since elementary to keep no secrets from you, and I appreciate you not immediately believing whatever it is you.. heard."

His tense eyes softened. He smiled and looked onto his hands, then back at me.

"Yeah. It's fine. It's just not something we really talk about, but I can see how it's easily a subject of conversation. Just, answer me honestly, okay?"

"Of course."

"Do you like anyone?"

It came with no hesitation, I hadn't given myself time to expect such a simple question. I quickly deadpanned. My eyes wandered to my lap as I thought about it. I haven't really _liked _anyone since middle school. Maybe even elementary. There's been general interests and curiosities, but none with a specific person at the other end. Well, not irregularly. I've told myself that it's normal to imagine new experiences to be with someone you most care about, because that seems to make sense. Doesn't it?

"It's _kind of _a yes or no question, Kyle."

"Yeah. I know. But I don't know."

A cheery sigh left his lips and I looked up to him.

"Only you, Ky." He grinned. My thoughts failing to cease upon subject change, I continued to process the imposing question. Possibly confusing nerves with other feelings, I tried to clear my mind.

"Do me a favor, Stan?"

"Okay."

"Tell me you love me."

"...I love you, Kyle."

I felt a small rise of butterflies in my chest as I usually do. The feeling sunk in as my thoughts furthered. I stood and moved over to Stan and pressed my forehead to his, then waited. He looked up to me, and I saw his cheeks redden as I felt my own doing as well.

"Hmm."

I placed a kiss onto his lips and felt a sudden tinge through my body as I felt Stan push back. After pulling away, I had come to a conclusion.

"Mn. You, I think."

"You... think." he smirked. I sat next to him.

"It's hard to tell. After years of feeling certain things, you become accustomed to such feelings and their origin seems to not matter after a while. Just that they're there."

"How long have you been feeling these feelings?" he faced me with a grin.

"I don't know anymore. See, there's people like you, that have opportunities and take them because it means experience. Then there's people like me, that not only don't have the opportunity but even if they did, they wouldn't take it unless it had a specific desired outcome. To me, when you did certain things that in turn made me feel certain things, it was completely logical because you're the person that I've experienced most of my life with so far, so your affect on me in all aspects of my life was reasonable. Now that you've brought up the subject though, I-"

"Kyle!" I looked up from my hands. He was hiding laughter. He shook his head at me and looked me over. "You're the smartest kid I know, and my best friend... but fuck, if I knew you thought about things _this _much I would've fixed this sooner!"

I stared at him questionably. The words 'fixed this' circled in my mind. "..What do you mean, Stan."

He took up his posture and loosely pointed at me, mimicking me I'm sure.

"See the thing about you, Ky, is you're way smart, but also way naïve. At least in some situations, such as this one. With a relationship like ours, it's hard to keep things from each other. Of course I know what I know about you and what I know about you is you don't know what love is."

"Ouch. Fuck you. Also, if you're trying to sound like me, get a little more sophisticated with your words there, stud."

"No offense, and you know what I mean." His hands began talking as much as his lips."You know what you _think_ love is and what being in love is, but like you said, have never experienced it first-hand, so of course your sciency brain tells you it's unnecessary, you don't need it, everything's fine the way it is._ I_ was waiting for the day you'd realize what you want, but it's been taking too long, so I took the initiative today. How's that, initiative a sophisticated enough word for you?"

I smiled and nodded as his finger was left pointing at himself for no reason. He continued.

"So I took the initiative and all that means is I wanted to hear from your mouth that you're in love with me, so it can be on the table and you'd at least realize it's a thing and then you'd be left to decide what you do with this information. Like, now. You wanna fuck or what?"

Involuntary laughter passed my lips as I rolled my eyes. Stan sure knew what to say without at all having a way with words. It's been fun having a bizarre best friend relationship with him, but I suppose he has a point. It's about time we make it a thing. My worry has always been that Stan wasn't sure if _he _wanted a relationship with me, or if he even loves me like I do him. That 'better to have loved' shit doesn't work for me, I'm not trying to get my feelings fucked up, but my over thinking has hindered me in certain parts of my life. That's why my next movement, I'd done without thinking at all, and perhaps that's why I don't entirely remember what got us here, but when I opened my eyes again, I saw Stan over me with a bright smile.

"The fuck was that?" he laughed.

"I'm not sure. I wasn't thinking."

"Well turn your brain off more often, that was awesome." He beamed and I laughed and brought his face close to mine once more.


End file.
